AU Inheritance Cycle
by Grey Man Kefaas
Summary: A very, very AU story. Roran is a dragon rider. Eragon is a wild dragon. Saphira is Roran's dragon. Eragon and Saphira are the last eligible pair of dragons in the world. ExS
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Prologue pt1**

Garrow shifted his foot, careful not to make any loud noises. Drawing the nocked arrow back to his ear he steadied his breathing, and released, the arrow shooting true and piercing the young doe's vulnerable throat. Ignoring his creaking joints, Garrow made his way towards his kill. _Gods I'm getting to old for this, but we need the extra food while Marian's pregnant. It better be a boy though, then he can take over the role of hunter._

Slinging the carcass over his shoulder Garrow made his way up to the closest game trail, slightly elevated above the clearing the doe had been occupying the as it led up to his faviroute cave for sleeping in, and as he obviously wasn't going to make it back before nightfall, that was where Garrow was going. Nocking an arrow, he started up the game trail.

After a slightly arduous trek up the mountainside, made worse by his ever-increasing stiffness of the joints, Garrow set his prized bow and arrows on the weathered floor of the caves, and set to work butchering the doe. Once he had finished gutting and skinning the young deer he set down his head on the makeshift pillow of dry leaves and semi-rotten grass.

* * *

**Time Jump: Three Years**

Roran ran around in the meadow, excited about father's trip to the market. As a toddler of three, Roran did not comprehend any of the reasons _why _father was going, he just knew he was. Spying a strange hole in an old, gnarled tree, Roran took off towards it, his young, inquisitive mind already working on many impossible fantasies. He did not realise how close he got to the truth.

Pushing both his pudgy hands into the hole, his stout fingers closed around a hard, smooth, rounded surface. Pulling, the stone-like thing came loose. It was a large oblong shape, a deep sea blue in colour, with veins the colour of the sky, as well as a few haphazard mouse brown lines running through the stone. Bored almost immediately by the 'boring stone', Roran picked it up, preparing to hide it in the hayloft of the stable. This was going to be _his _secret.

Once he had stuck the stone into a corner and covered it in hay, Roran left towards the house, already forgetting about the mysterious stone.

* * *

**Time Jump: Fifteen Years**

Durza hated Urgals but he had to use them because his master had commanded him to. He _loathed _his prey though. Ordering the Urgals to hide, he saw his prey approaching. Two long, silver haired men rode pure white horses, followed by a raven-haired woman on a similar horse. All had slanted brows, sharp chins and elongated ears, tapering to points. Elves. "Fire" Durza whispered.

Cruel, Black arrows, enchanted with dark magic, sped towards the elves, piercing the first two elves but missing the last. The raven-haired woman looked torn, but eventually galloped off the way they had come. "After her, you fools!" he shrieked and sprinted toward the disappearing horse. "Istalri Boetk!" he shouted desperately.

Suddenly, a huge swathe of the forest caught aflame, encircling the elf woman. With his magically enhanced speed, Durza easily caught up to the panicking beast and rider. "It's over, elf!" he spat "Surrender!"

"Surrender? To a Shade? Never!" She yelled angrily.

"So be it." Durza muttered, and began to chant words in a language known to few but the elves.

Screaming a line off in the same language, the elf looked triumphantly at Durza. Suddenly a flash of emerald light blinded him. Cursing in a language taught to him by the evil spirits residing in his body, he jumped to his feet. "What did you do?" he shrieked.

"It's gone. You have to find it all over again." the she-elf muttered.

"Slytha!" the Shade cursed and the elf keeled over in a deep state of unconsciousness.

* * *

The male dragon, safe in its egg in in the hayloft, felt something inside him click. He had considered hatching all those years ago, when He had first been found. Although the half-formed mind of the dragon had no real concept of time, he vaguely knew he had waited a long time to hatch. There had been something wrong then, though and he had felt that he should wait. It was as if something had been whispering in his ear, telling him to prolong his confinement. It felt _right _now though, the opposite of before, something urging him to break free of his dark prison. The mind of he who found him was far away and the other was sleeping. Suddenly, a wave of contentment washed over the small dragon, and with that he started to butt his small head against the hard egg-shell.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 1: The Hatchling**

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of the stuff you recognise.**

Roran released the arrow at just the wrong moment. The barbed flint head, mounted on a foot-long shaft of wood, a centimetre and a half in diameter, tipped with curved goose feather, flew roughly half the distance to the deer. Where it was engulfed in am immense flash of emerald green light.

Picking himself up off the floor yards from where he had been standing, Roran groaned at the sight before him. A huge crater about five spans across lay in the centre. The trees in the immediate vicinity lay black and flattened as well as stripped of all their leaves and small branches. Nevertheless it was what lay at the centre of the crater that caught Roran's attention, rekindling an old memory of his time as a toddler. _There was a stone just like that in a tree! I'm sure it was a slightly different colour, slightly bigger, and more veined._

Stuffing the stone into his sack, Roran glanced in the direction that the doe had been in. Unfortunately, it looked to have escaped with it's life. _I guess I'm going home relatively empty handed, as we can't eat this mysterious stone. Anyway, this one must have been brought here by magic. was I meant to have it?_

Plodding back into Carvahall, Roran started in the direction of the butchers. _Perhaps I can trade it for meat._ he thought. The door of the small meat shop swung open, causing a bell to ring when Roran entered the building. "What d'ya want, boy?" Sloan rasped "Have ya got any money this time?".

"Well no, but-" he started.

"Then why are ya in mah shop? Get out!" Sloan cut in

"I have got something to trade!" Roran blurted, pulling the stone out of his sack. "It must be valuable!"

"Obviously"

"How much?"

"Five crowns." Sloan stated.

"Buts that's a miser's bargain!" Roran exclaimed angrily.

"Take it, or leave it."

"But-"

"Do you want yah meat?"

"Fine, I'll take it."

"Where d'ya get this anyway? Ya didn't steal it, did ya?" Sloan queried.

"Of course not!" Roran exclaimed indignantly "I found it in the Spine."

"Get Out! Out! Out!" Sloan yelled.

At that moment the local blacksmith, Horst, arrived. "What's going on?" he asked. Sloan spoke first.

"This _boy _is pestering me. I asked him to leave but he won't!"

"Is this true?" Horst asked calmly.

"No!" Roran shouted. "I offered to trade him this stone for some meat and he accepted. When I told him I found it in the Spine, he refused to trade with me!"

After a short length of time Horst had successfully bought a whole sackfull of venison and given it to Roran, free of charge. Feeling grateful Roran offered to give the stone to Horst but he refused.

"Keep it, boy. Finders Keepers." he had said.

Arriving back at the farm house, Roran decided to get the other stone, the one in the hayloft, so he could show both to his father. Plonking the bag of butchered meat down by the front door, he headed towards the stables. _I wonder what they're made of. _he thought _It must be hard to survive that explosion. _As Roran climbed the ladder to the hayloft he could hear faint scratching sounds, as well as the odd squeak. Assuming it was a cat chasing some rodent, it did not bother him. What he found when he got up there shocked him to the core.

Instead of a boisterous cat and mouse game, what he saw was a cat-sized creature, trying to untangle it's ungainly body from a sticky membrane. With one last psh it shook off its clingy casing. Roran almost passed out from the shock of what he saw looking back at him. It was a dragon. Dark blue scales coated it almost entirely, with lighter ones surrounding the eyes and covering its underbelly. The dragon opened it's eyes and looked straight at Roran, who blinked in surprise. There was something _intelligent _about those mouse brown eyes.

Roran's mind was racing. _I have to show father, but he would want to kill it to avoid getting caught up with the king or the rebels. I suppose I should feel the same way but the idea feels repulsive. And according to Brom there are only three eggs and the kings dragon left. So where did this one come from? _After several minutes consideration he decided to release it into the wild. Picking up the hatchling by the scruff of it's neck he glanced at the corner where he had left the stone ages ago. All that was there was a cluster of dark blue shards, the exact shade as the dragon. _And the stone! _he thought, realising the 'stone' had been an egg. _Wait... the stone I found today had a remarkable resemblance to that... I found _another _dragon egg! I'll keep this one. _A question came to Roran's mind "Er, dragon, are you male?" he asked jovially, not really expecting an answer. It _was _only an animal, after all. He was surprised, then, when he felt a _presence_ pushing against his mind, radiating contentment. Shocked, he quickly made his way down the ladder, dragon I hand and sprinted into the forest in the relative darkness of late evening.

Once a suitable distance from the house, he stopped for a few seconds to catch his breath. Pushing the little dragon into the branches of a small tree, he turned around and was about to run off when he felt hunger that wasn't his own. Sighing, he pulled a few strips of dried meat from his pocket and chucked them at the dragon, who caught them in it's mouth, before turning again and jogging back to the house.

_What a night! _he thought as he picked up his butcher's meat and pushed open the door of his father's house.


End file.
